Bullet-proof Pyjamas (ePub)

A theater play, this is best described as a romantic comedy dealing with different kinds of sexual preference. Four women are in love with the same Russian millionaire, Igor, but he is in love with Carlos, the young gay Spanish private eye he has employed to spy on his young wife whom he suspects of infidelity. Igor maintains a conventional front and feels his wife is compromising his reputation. But behind this outward appearance of respectability, Igor, a tormented man, indulges darker passions. The four women in love with him are Jackie, his wife; her sister Isobel (his ex-fiancee); his secretary Marguerite whose passion for Igor has remained unrequited for five long years; and Igor's confidante, Helga, a Swedish S&M specialist who has, perforce, become a psychotherapist for many of her confused male clientele. The four men involved are two as above Igor and Carlos, plus Jackie's lover Victor, an adman, whose frivolous disposition justifies the label Madman; a gay man, Joe, who runs a military disposal store and who helps Jackie and Victor find the bullet-proof pyjamas of the title; and Horace, hen-pecked husband of Marguerite whom Helga guides towards rebellion. The contrasting and conflicting motivations of these eight people drive them towards a chaotic confrontation out of which a semblance of order emerges. The intention of the play is to amuse by exploring absurdities in the human condition, The emphasis is on dialogue and situation. There is optional, incidental nudity as the play opens, and, in the last scene, a discretely staged sexual encounter that is interrupted by unexpected arrivals. The author claims, as influences, George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde and Restoration dramatists such as Richard Sheridan.